Ruminations of an Expatriate

Archive for the ‘Ledeen’ Category

Lurking Amongst The Plausibly Deniable Shadows Of Officialdom

Thursday, June 5th, 2008

Perhaps you read this piece of fantastical nonsense by Edward Luttwak, which appeared as an op-ed in the New York Times on May 12. If so, then amongst Luttwak’s offering you found these gems of delusion.

As the son of the Muslim father, Senator Obama was born a Muslim under Muslim law as it is universally understood. It makes no difference that, as Senator Obama has written, his father said he renounced his religion. Likewise, under Muslim law based on the Koran his mother’s Christian background is irrelevant.

Of course, as most Americans understand it, Senator Obama is not a Muslim. He chose to become a Christian, and indeed has written convincingly to explain how he arrived at his choice and how important his Christian faith is to him.

His conversion, however, was a crime in Muslim eyes; it is “irtidad” or “ridda,” usually translated from the Arabic as “apostasy,” but with connotations of rebellion and treason. Indeed, it is the worst of all crimes that a Muslim can commit, worse than murder (which the victim’s family may choose to forgive).

With few exceptions, the jurists of all Sunni and Shiite schools prescribe execution for all adults who leave the faith not under duress; the recommended punishment is beheading at the hands of a cleric, although in recent years there have been both stonings and hangings. (Some may point to cases in which lesser punishments were ordered — as with some Egyptian intellectuals who have been punished for writings that were construed as apostasy — but those were really instances of supposed heresy, not explicitly declared apostasy as in Senator Obama’s case.)

——–

At the very least, that would complicate the security planning of state visits by President Obama to Muslim countries, because the very act of protecting him would be sinful for Islamic security guards. More broadly, most citizens of the Islamic world would be horrified by the fact of Senator Obama’s conversion to Christianity once it became widely known — as it would, no doubt, should he win the White House. This would compromise the ability of governments in Muslim nations to cooperate with the United States in the fight against terrorism, as well as American efforts to export democracy and human rights abroad.

I had not heard of, let alone read, Luttwak’s delusional offering until I ran across a reference, in one of the news blogs I frequent, to the New York Times Public Editor Clark Hoyt’s June 1 denunciation of Luttwak’s nonsense, in which he criticized the NYT editors for running the piece without a review of Luttwak’s contentions related to Islamic law or unaccompanied by contrary commentary. Hoyt, in part, provides.

I interviewed five Islamic scholars, at five American universities, recommended by a variety of sources as experts in the field. All of them said that Luttwak’s interpretation of Islamic law was wrong.

Interestingly, in defense of his own article, Luttwak sent me an analysis of it by a scholar of Muslim law whom he did not identify. That scholar also did not agree with Luttwak that Obama was an apostate or that Muslim law would prohibit punishment for any Muslim who killed an apostate. He wrote, “You seem to be describing some anarcho-utopian version of Islamic legalism, which has never existed, and after the birth of the modern nation state will never exist.”

——-

Shipley, the Op-Ed editor, said he regretted not urging Luttwak to soften his language about possible assassination, given how sensitive the subject is. But he said he did not think the Op-Ed page was under any obligation to present an alternative view, beyond some letters to the editor.

I do not agree. With a subject this charged, readers would have been far better served with more than a single, extreme point of view. When writers purport to educate readers about complex matters, and they are arguably wrong, I think The Times cannot label it opinion and let it go at that.

Still, even after reading of Hoyt’s denunciation, I had read neither Luttwak’s commentary nor Hoyt’s denunciation, until today after reading this fascinating piece on Luttwak by Laura Rozen, one of the country’s few remaining real journalists, after running across excerpts at her excellent blog, War and Piece.

Reading Rozen’s piece has caused me to further wonder how many Edward Luttwaks and Michael Ledeens (a former Luttwak partner, the guy who called the Pearl harbor attack “lucky”, who was involved in the Inran-Contra affair, and who was likely behind the forged Niger uranium documents) are lurking amongst the plausibly deniable shadows of officialdom, doing its dirtiest of dirty work. And how it is that such psychopaths are allowed even into the shadows.

Share, Bookmark, or Email This Post if You Wish

Close this Window Bookmark and Share This Page

Save to Browser Favorites / Bookmarks